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editor's note

Tanya Chaitanya (Editor Femina India)

For every doubting Thomas who tells you women can’t scale mountains, wrestle in the ring, endure physical hardship, your comeback should be a simple hashtag:#StandStrong.
There’s no bigger retaliation than success, they say. So show your calibre to these detractors or anybody who believes that we, as women, lack the potential to be physically as fit as men by being just that. Not to say that it will be an easy process.
The conditioning that we are not at par physically starts early. From the time we are offered a hand to bring down the cookie jar to when we are told not to lift too heavy a weight; when the sports selectors in schools bypass promising girl children or when the male friends refuse to count us in in any serious hiking plans—that feeling of being physically less is ingrained right from the beginning.
So how is it that we witness sportswomen like Mary Kom packing a punch in the arena or a badminton champ like PV Sindhu physically pushing herself to the limits? Or the fact that celebs like Jacqueline Fernandez, Taapsee Pannu, Katrina Kaif swear by their fitness routine and are known to train for longer hours than their male counterparts?
Then again look beyond these superwomen. Look around you. There are regular women storming into male bastions, physically-challenging professions and pursuits, and coming out triumphant. This new-found confidence comes with taking care of yourself, being cognizant of the fact that our body needs to be given TLC, from the right diet and nutrition to exercise and care to help us stand strong.
This is when I raise a toast: Here’s to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them!

How Mithali Raj shut down her trolls

Mithali Raj, India women’s cricket team captain, gives us many moments of inspiration on her Twitter feed.

The outspoken captain recently became the first woman to score more that 6000 runs in One-day cricket and while she did that, she also broke a previous record held by Charlotte Edwards. She led her team to a very closely fought World Cup final in July this year. Though they lost by a narrow margin, they won accolades from the entire country, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said the khiladi betiyaan had won the hearts of 1.25 crore Indians. His thoughts were echoed by Sachin Tendulkar too.

But that didn't stop the trolls on Twitter from heckling her. Not once, but on two recent occasions, Mithali has been trolled on Twitter.

On August 19, Mithali had tweeted a photo with three cricketers at the launch of a cricket academy. She said, ``What a momentous day today was, standing with these special women!! (Mamatha Maben, former national cricketer, Nooshin Al Khadeer, former national cricketer, and coach of Chandigarh cricket association and Veda Krishnamurthy, fellow team member of the Indian women’s cricket team).

The regressive brigade on Twitter, started advising her on her dress with moralising tweets that went from `` Not Gud. Not expected these kind of pictures. Sorryyy’’ to Plz,,Delete this selfi Mithali madam...’’ to the extreme, `` are you porn star???? Have you any respect?’’.